Self-Compassion and Well-Being in Parents of Children with Autism

Abstract

Parents of children with autism are faced with difficult and unique daily stressors associated with their child's disorder. The personal characteristics of parents can influence how they approach stressful life events and potentially help them cope with some of the deleterious effects associated with extreme stress. One factor that may be an important coping strategy is self-compassion, which involves being kind to oneself in times of difficulty, recognizing the shared nature of human suffering, and being mindfully aware of negative thoughts and emotions. This study examined the association between self-compassion and well-being in 51 parents of a child with autism using self-report measures. Self-compassion was positively associated with life satisfaction, hope, and goal reengagement and negatively associated with depression and parental stress. Even though child symptom severity is often the strongest predictor of negative adjustment for parents, self-compassion universally predicted parental well-being over and above the effects of child symptom severity. Results suggest that self-compassion may play a significant role in well-being for parents of children with autism. Implications for future research and applications of the construct of self-compassion are discussed.

Gratitude and Athletes’ Life Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Mindfulness

“…In addition, our findings work in concert with previous studies that indicated the beneficial effects of mindfulness on well-being across special populations, such as body dissatisfaction in women (Albertson, Neff, & Dill-Shackleford, 2015) and parents of children with autism (Neff & Faso, 2015).…”

Meta-Analysis of Gender Differences in Self-Compassion

“…In other words, the discrepancy between the level of compassion given to oneself versus to others appears to be larger among women than men (Neff & Pommier, 2013). This is unfortunate because research indicates that self-compassion helps prevent the stress and burnout often experienced by caregivers (Barnard & Curry, 2012;Neff & Faso, 2014;Shapiro, Brown, & Biegel, 2007). It may be particularly helpful for women to receive direct training in self-compassion, therefore, in order to learn how to balance caring for themselves and others.…”

Exploring the link between maternal attachment‐related anxiety and avoidance and mindful parenting: The mediating role of self‐compassion

“…() found that higher levels of self‐compassion were associated with decreased parenting stress. Similarly, Neff and Faso () found that self‐compassion predicted positive adjustment, including less parental stress, of parents of children with autism.…”